Northern Spark: Sunset To Sunrise

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Northern Spark kicks off on Saturday, June 8th, at 8:58pm in Lowertown St. Paul, Minnesota. This will be our third year attending Northern Spark (a little history of the Nuit Blanche movement in this piece). Last year we stayed awake from dusk to dawn, and ended our night viewing the sunrise from the top of the Foshay Tower. It’s more difficult than you think to stay awake all night, an insomniac’s dream!

Here’s a link to Northern’s Spark’s full schedule and two more to their Facebook and Twitter pages. Last year we downloaded the Northern Spark app on our Droids and highly recommend it. The slideshow is a glimpse into our night walk around Minneapolis at last year’s Northern Spark, and at a pre-Spark gathering the week before. We are looking forward to Lowertown, St. Paul. It’s a gift to share the night, the light, and the Arts in community.

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, June 7th, 2013

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Footprints & Things That Never Were

Footprints, California Coast, circa 1995, b&w Tri-X film, Canon EOS Rebel SLR
film camera, © 1995-2013 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Water pools
on an aging bluff—
webbed footprints
deposit a longing
for things that never were.

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bluff

A bluff—a high bank above a river, a headland of precipitous cliffs—is created when elements of Earth go to battle. In nearly all Earth’s processes, one element is pitted against another, and the weaker is washed away, swept off, compressed. What is weakly held together breaks down easily. Bluffs come from such processes. Such bluffs were susceptible to prevailing winds, others to movements within the Earth, others to scouring ice. Some are layered up with the sand of a long-ago sea or the pebbles of a former stream or with the fossils of animals. Many bluffs come to life when water cuts down through seams of Earth layers, creating slippage and collapse. The ocean, the ever-ongoing movement of waves against the shore, carves other bluffs, as at the edge of Puget Sound and along the California coast. Rattlesnake Mountain in Nebraska was shaped by upward sweeping winds. Nana Wyah, the sacred Chickasaw Bluffs in Oklahoma, were renamed after the Trail of Tears. Mount Rushmore, carved into Lakota sacred land, is a granite bluff. And Bluff is a little town on the banks of the San Juan River in Utah, ringed by its namesake landform. In Islands in the Stream, Hemingway writes: “The house was built on the highest part of the narrow tongue of land between the harbor and the open sea. It has lasted through three hurricanes and it was built solid as a ship. It was shaded by tall coconut palms that were bent by the trade wind and on the ocean side you could walk out of the door and down the bluff across the white sand and into the Gulf Stream.”

-Linda Hogan, from Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

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Shoebox Photographs: Memories Of War

Memorial Day, Savage, Minnesota, June 2009, photo © 2013 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Memorial Day, a somber remembrance of the men and women who gave their lives in U.S. wars. I am fortunate; I only know of one family member who died while fighting a war—my Uncle James. When I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at its dedication, I did a rubbing of his name (Panel 20W – Line 32). And when I started blogging, I discovered the Vietnam Veterans Memorial website where I began leaving him messages each Memorial Day. Uncle James died seven months into his tour, in Binh Long, South Vietnam, a long way from his South Carolina home. This is the time I dedicate to him.

Yesterday, I listened to CBS Sunday Morning and was taken with Lee Cowan’s story of Charlie Haughey, a Vietnam war photographer. It reminded me of the importance of photographs to remembering the dead. During his service as a photographer in Vietnam, Charlie Haughey chronicled the daily life of soldiers in his battalion. When his tour ended, he dropped his nearly 2,000 photo negatives into a shoebox, and hid them away. Now, after 45 years, Haughey’s mesmerizing images of soldiers battling the physical and emotional hardships of war are seeing the light of day. You can see in his eyes, they still bring him pain.

To all of the fallen, and for Uncle James. Never forgotten.

-posted on red Ravine, Memorial Day, May 27th, 2013

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Minneapolis At Night: Crossing The Mississippi

Minneapolis At Night: Crossing The Mississippi, Droid Shots, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2013, photos © 2013 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Lost city of lakes—
an Instagram river ignites
your Polaroid skies.

Mississippi churning
across the dark drive home
a mist quietly settles.

-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, May 11th, 2013

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Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day graphic by Abdullah Rofii, April 2013, photo from Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day website.

Every year I plan to participate in Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, and every year it falls too close to our biggest event of the year, Art-A-Whirl. While Liz and I are busy prepping and preparing Casket Arts Studio 318, photographers across the globe are creating images with handmade pinhole cameras. Many of us know pinhole photography from elementary school science when we made a pinhole camera from a Quaker oatmeal box. But you can also make cameras from matchboxes, film canisters, paint cans, and shoe boxes.

The history of the pinhole camera dates back to the 5th century BC when the basic optical principles of the pinhole are commented on in Chinese texts. Chinese writers had experimented and discovered that light travels in straight lines. The philosopher Mo Ti (later Mo Tsu) was the first – to our knowledge – to record the formation of an inverted image with a pinhole or screen.

Hopefully, one year I will be in sync with other photographers from around the world and get out in the field with my own pinhole camera to celebrate Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Until then, I enjoy the pinhole images posted by amateur and professional photographers worldwide. You can view the lensless pinhole photos submitted for 2013 at the Worldwide Pinhole Photography website.

-related to post: Pinhole Photography — History & Bones

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, April 28th, 2013, Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

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WRITING TOPIC — APPLE

The Honeycrisp Apple, Archive 365, Droid Shots, The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Chaska, Minnesota, September 2012, photos © 2012-2013 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Apples were a crisp, healthy snack when I was growing up. The apple varieties I was most familiar with then were Red Delicious and Granny Smiths. On a recent trip to the grocery store, I was introduced to two apples I had never tasted before: the KIKU and the Ambrosia. If you draw a thermometer and add a scale from sweet to tart, here’s where they fit in:  SWEET — KIKU, Fuji, Ambrosia, Gala, Jonagold, Cameo, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Honeycrisp, Kanzi, Braeburn, Pink Lady, Granny Smith — TART.

Apples are closely linked to place, and many of us are familiar with the Gala from New Zealand or the Fuji from Japan (both developed in the 1930s). In the history of the apple industry, the three varieties I favor are relatively new to the world. The Ambrosia originated in the 1990s in the Similkameen Valley of British Columbia, Canada where the Mother Tree still lives. Local favorite the Honeycrisp was developed by the University of Minnesota and introduced in 1991. The Honeycrisp is a cross between a Macoun and a Honeygold (the Honeygold itself a cross between the Golden Delicious and Haralson). The KIKU came about in 1990 when Luis Braun, the South Tyrolean apple expert, was traveling through Japan and discovered a branch in an orchard, which a few years later would become the sweet KIKU apple.

What’s your favorite apple?

Where does your mind go when I say apple? Is it your first bite of a lunchtime snack, a trip where you picked orchard apples with your family, or the smell of fresh apple pie right out of the oven (check out this great apple pie recipe from ybonesy: 1-2-3! Apple Pie Gluten-Free!). Are you reminded of a computer company? Or perhaps a certain snake and the precursor to the Seven Deadly Sins (another good Writing Topic). Do you believe the adage, An apple a day keeps the doctor away?

Let your mind wander to all the places where apples grow, and capture your impressions in a Writing Practice.

Apple, 15 minutes, Go!

The KIKU Apple, Archive 365, Droid Shots, Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 2013, photos © 2013 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

RESOURCES:

History of the Honeycrisp Apple – New Kid On The Block at Wood Orchard Market

History of the Ambrosia Apple - Ambrosia History at Ambrosia Organic

History of the KIKU Apple – Story – 20 Years at Kiku Apple

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, March 3rd, 2013

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Only An Eagle And I For A Moment

By Silver Grey Fox

This morning driving along a section of pines

the roadside vista reminds me of my glimpse

of the piney woods sections outside Houston

in Texas with the mixture of pines and shrubs

and the temperate nature of the forested area.

Then, rather suddenly I notice a bald eagle,

its white head distinct above its black raven-

colored body, sitting atop a solitary pine.

And, for a moment I pause on a turn-off

to observe its falcon-like instinctive pattern

of behavior when searching for and seeking

prey. Only for a moment, so it seems, am I

privy to its activity as it circles, then swoops

down earthward to snatch what I can’t quite

see until it climbs back above nearby brush.

Then, there, visible in its talons, is one of the

larger snakes I have seen in this section of

South Florida. Oh, sometimes I wish for the

spontaneous nature of such feathered creatures–

for the eyesight, for the instinct, for the ability

to move so gracefully at times and then also

having the speed to so naturally snatch its prey.

Ah, with the eagle nestled back somewhere

now in this piney woods to enjoy its catch,

I continue my drive back into my morning’s

activities—banking, shopping, laundering…

a far cry from my moment’s enjoyment with

the eagle sighting. Such is our connection,

my bird and I, such is our likeable difference.

_________________________

About Silver Grey Fox:

As a writer-poet, I continue trying to gain an understanding of the enigma that is mine and that which was the late Theodore Roethke’s own. He once said, “What I love is near at hand.” Thus, there is so much yet left to be explored; plus, as he noted, “Being, not doing, is my first joy.” What with nature’s beauty all around, and my continuing to reach out and touch, feel and appreciate such, along with having opted to re-open myself to love and life, I continue seeking to more fully define my identity, so I write and write some more.

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Links Of Interest:

On Theodore Roethke — Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) — Poetry Foundation

On Gary Snyder — Gary Snyder (b. 1930) — Poetry Foundation

On Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones — Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones Bio

On Black Holes — Black Holes — NASA Science Astrophysics

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, February 28th, 2013

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Shuttlecocks, 1994 – 34/365

Shuttlecocks, 1994 – 34/365, Archive 365, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, April 2009, photo © 2009-2013 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

At a writing retreat in 2009, our host took us to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. Like we had done at museums in New Mexico with Natalie Goldberg (see Diebenkorn Leaves Taos – Museum Walking Lives On), we walked around in silence, then gathered in front of the museum to do Writing Practice. I like the practice of taking photographs in the silence; this photo of the sculpture Shuttlecocks was snapped on a slow walk around the museum grounds. Museums are energizing places to find inspiration for writing and art.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is a neoclassic structure designed by Kansas City architects Wight and Wight. Groundbreaking took place on July 16, 1930. The sculpture Shuttlecocks was created by husband and wife team Claes Oldenburg (American, born Sweden 1929) and Coosje van Bruggen (American, born The Netherlands, 1942), the same pair that created the Minneapolis sculpture, Spoonbridge & Cherry at the Walker (see my foggy winter photograph of Spoonbridge & Cherry in the piece White Elephants On Art). It is the scale of these sculptures that draws me in.

According to Nelson-Atkins, when Oldenburg and van Bruggen were commissioned in 1994 to design a sculpture for the space, they responded to the formality of the original neoclassical building and the green expanse of its lawn by imagining the museum as a badminton net and the lawn as a playing field. The pair designed four birdies or shuttlecocks (made out of aluminum, paint, and fiberglass-reinforced plastic) that were placed as though they had just landed on opposite sides of the net. Each shuttlecock weighs 5,500 pounds, stands nearly 18 feet tall, and has a diameter of 16 feet.

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ARCHIVE 365: Archive 365 is a photo collaboration between skywire7 and QuoinMonkey featuring images from our archives. We will alternate posting once a day in our Flickr sets from July 1st 2012 through June 30th 2013. You can view our photographs at skywire7 Archive 365 set on Flickr and QuoinMonkey Archive 365 set on Flickr.

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, January 13th, 2013

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Dylan Thomas — A Close & Holy Darkness

Santa At Holidazzle – 178/365, Archive 365, Droid Shots, December 2012, Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Christmas Day. Presents opened, eggnog half gone, phone calls East and West. Longing, joy, gratitude, loss. What to leave behind, what to keep. Emptiness. Love.

Reading Dylan Thomas aloud, Christmas Eve. The moon-buried sky over a village churchyard in Laugharne. The close and holy darkness must have haunted him. A child’s sugarplum dreams—tufted hooves flick mediæval snow off the rooftop Castle of Abercorran.

Waiting for Santa—
the frigid windless night
soothes and comforts me.

Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept. –Dylan Thomas, A Child’s Christmas in Wales

Laugharne is a town in Carmarthenshire, Wales on the estuary of the River Tâf, and home to Dylan Thomas from 1949 until his death in 1953. Thought to have been an inspiration for the fictional town of Llareggub in Under Milk Wood, the Township was originally known as Abercorran. The name was changed to Laugharne after the English Civil War.

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, December 25th, 2012

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See The World Without Going Anywhere – 88/365

See The World Without Going Anywhere – 88/365, Archive 365, BlackBerry Shots, May 2010, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, photo © 2010-2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Seen on a walk through Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2010. The things that are important are sometimes invisible to the eye. Like the images that develop in the mind and heart when we read.

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ARCHIVE 365: Archive 365 is a photo collaboration between skywire7 and QuoinMonkey featuring images from our archives. We will alternate posting once a day in our Flickr sets from July 1st 2012 through June 30th 2013. You can view our photographs at skywire7 Archive 365 set on Flickr and QuoinMonkey Archive 365 set on Flickr.

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, October 7th, 2012

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Tyrone Guthrie Outside The Guthrie — 64/365

Tyrone Guthrie Outside The Guthrie – 64/365, Archive 365, BlackBerry Shots, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2010-2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

The Archive 365 practice and collaboration continues with a photograph taken outside the Guthrie Theater in August 2010. With each new image, I feel compelled to look into tidbits about the subject’s history. It’s no secret that Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Midwest architect Ralph Rapson did not see eye-to-eye on the design of the original Guthrie Theater (the play Tyrone & Ralph was written highlighting this piece of history). The two fought over the thrust stage which Guthrie wanted and the asymmetrical design Rapson desired. They also disagreed over the color of the seats. Guthrie ordered Rapson to make sure the seats were all the same bland color; Rapson wanted brightness and vivacity and decidedly disobeyed. By the time the hundreds of multicolored seats arrived, it was too late for Guthrie to do anything about it.

In spite of their disagreements, Rapson’s modern design prevailed and the Guthrie opened on May 7, 1963 with a production of Hamlet directed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie; it became one of the most respected theaters in the country. An idea that began in 1959 during a series of conversations among Guthrie and two colleagues—Oliver Rea and Peter Zeisler—who were disenchanted with Broadway, sprang to life. They realized their dream to create a theater with a resident acting company that would perform the classics in rotating repertory with the highest professional standards.

Sir Tyrone Guthrie was the Artistic Director from 1963 through 1966 and returned to direct each year until 1969. He passed away in 1971. Architect Ralph Rapson died of heart failure in 2008 at the age of 93. The original Guthrie was torn down in 2006; the theater dimmed its lights 43 years to the day that it opened — also with a production of Hamlet. It reopened across town by the Mississippi River in a new, $125 million three-stage complex with the faces of Tyrone Guthrie, August Wilson, Lorraine Hansberry, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Anton Chekhov, Eugene O’Neill and George Bernard Shaw etched into its walls.

Resources:

Guthrie Theater History – The Guthrie

Ralph Rapson, architect of the original Guthrie, has died – MPR News

The Old Guthrie Goes Down – photos at The Masticator

Guthrie Theater brings curtain down on original home – MPR News

Guthrie & Rapson battle again – MPR news

-posted on red Ravine, Monday, September 3rd, 2012

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PRACTICE — Cloud — 10min

By Marylin Schultz

Clouds of black dirt rolled across the plains of midwest America in the late 1920’s and the 1930’s, giving a generic name to the era, “the dirty thirties,” as well as “the dust bowl” to the affected land. PBS has publicized a Ken Burns’ documentary on that bleak time in our country’s history, and I have a personal story to add, told to me by my mother.

My parents were married in 1932, a brave and hopeful couple, living more on dreams than dollars. Although my father was employed in the insurance company begun by his father in Childress, Texas, before the “crash of 1929,” most of his income came from commissions, and insurance was considered a luxury by many people during those poor economic times. He was in charge of the branch office in Albuquerque.

The first child was born to the couple in 1934. My mother decided to visit her mother who lived in Amarillo. She was on a bus with her infant, about halfway through their journey east, when a cold wind picked up. Off in the distance was an unbelievable sight. In the sky, to the north, a huge black wall seemed to be approaching them. A wave of darkness, reaching from the ground, hundreds of feet into the sky, was rapidly rolling towards them. The driver pulled the bus off of the road and hurried down the aisle with a container of water, shouting an explanation and directions.

“It’s top-soil, comin’ fast, and here’s what you got to do. Dampen your handkerchiefs with this water and hold it over your nose and mouth, ‘else you’ll choke to death!” My mother was terrified, especially for her infant. She carefully dipped two handkerchiefs into the offered water and tied one across her baby’s face and the other across her own. Of course, the tiny infant was upset by the unusual circumstances and began crying. The anxious mother hugged him to her breast and tried to comfort the struggling child.

“Close your eyes,” the driver continued, now back in his seat. “We just got to wait it out and hope it don’t take long to pass by us.”

The black cloud was now upon them. It was darker than a moonless night; absolute, total darkness. The bitter, cold wind shook the bus. With the eerie whistling of the wind came muffled screams and moans of some of the passengers. The few minutes it took for the cloud to move beyond the bus, seemed like a long journey down into the depths of hell and back!

The welcome relief of stillness and daylight lasted several minutes, before anyone spoke.

“Everyone okay back there?” the driver called out. Then, like a flood, the comments came forth. Exclamations of the incredible experience filled the air. Dirty faces now emerged, but with grins that showed how no one minded “a little dirt,” because they all survived the momentary terror!

Many years later, my mother and I were tourists in the Black Hills of South Dakota, being guided through a deep cave. The tour guide, as part of his usual lecture, turned off the lights to let us experience the total darkness. However, he did not tell the group ahead of time, that this was his intention. The result of being plunged, once more, into total darkness, my Mom grabbed my arm and screamed! When the light was turned on, she gave a brief, embarrassed explanation of the fright she had experienced so long ago.

NOTE: WRITING TOPIC — CLOUD is the latest Writing Topic on red Ravine. Frequent guest writer Marylin Schultz is joining QuoinMonkey and Bob Chrisman in doing a Writing Practice on the topic.

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PRACTICE — CLOUD — 10min

By Bob Chrisman

Clouds disappear in the night sky here in the city. Before the sun sat, gray clouds had covered the sky and now I can’t see anything except a dark gray sky. If I go outside and sit on the steps I’ll be able to see the cloud cover because the spotlight from the disowned Frank Lloyd Wright on the Plaza will shine off the clouds and I’ll know if the clouds have gone away.

The summer has been free of cloud for the most part. We look with anticipation at any cloud that floats across the sky. Rain? Will it bring showers? The cloud floats by and leaves the ground dry.

The clouds have passed over us, except for a rare sprinkle here and there. You can almost hear the trees sigh with relief as any water, no matter how little, falls on them. They swallow it up and beg for more, but this summer, more has not come their way.

The edges of the leaves have dehydrated as though the moisture had leaked out of them—some leaf vampires have attacked all the leaves on every tree. The victims of these vampires turn brown and fall to the ground. Color has left the leaves and turned them to a dull green. A few have turned a pale yellow, but for the most part only shades of brown are visible on the trees.

We will have rain tonight. That’s what the weather people say. Showers. But, at almost 9 p.m. the air is warm and still. The cicadas saw away in the trees outside, a deafening chorus that arrived early this year.

Everything has come early this year: the heat, the drought, the turning leaves. The only thing that hasn’t come at all is a cloud to relieve the thirsty earth.

NOTE: WRITING TOPIC — CLOUD is the latest Writing Topic on red Ravine. Frequent guest writer Bob Chrisman is joining QuoinMonkey in doing a Writing Practice on the topic.

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WRITING TOPIC — CLOUD

Missing Ely’s Sky – 23/365, Archive 365, Droid Shots, Ely, Minnesota, photo © 2012 by Liz Schultz. All rights reserved.

Taos, New Mexico, photo © 2007-2012 QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Clouds are connectors. We see cloud formations as recognizable, weather predicting puffs of air. Clouds are classified using a Latin Linnean system based on a book written by a London pharmacist, Quaker, and amateur meteorologist named Luke Howard. In 1803, he wrote The Modifications of Clouds naming the various cloud structures he had studied.

New Hope, Minnesota, photo © 2010-2012 QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

The terms used by Howard were readily accepted by the meteorological community and detailed in The International Cloud Atlas, published by the World Meteorological Organization in 1896. They are still used across the world today.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) extended Luke Howard’s classifications into 10 main groups of clouds, called genera. These are divided into three levels – cloud low (CL), cloud medium (CM) and cloud high (CH) – according to the part of the atmosphere in which they are usually found. Types of clouds can be categorized by height and are divided up by the following names:

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Cloud level (ft)	Cloud type
High clouds – (CH) Base usually 20,000 ft or above	Cirrus Cirrocumulus Cirrostratus
Medium clouds – (CM) Base usually between 6,500 and 20,000 ft	Altocumulus Altostratus Nimbostratus
Low clouds – (CL) Base usually below 6,500 ft	Stratocumulus Stratus Cumulus Cumulonimbus

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The names of clouds are based on their height as well as their appearance. Common cloud names are derived from Latin:

• Stratus— means layer and refers to the group of clouds that form in big sheets covering the entire sky. Stratus clouds are made of liquid water and are called fog or mists when close to the Earth. The blend of altostratus can cause ice build up on the wings of aircraft.
• Cumulus—in Latin cumulus means heap. These are fair-weather clouds that we might say look like cotton candy or castles.
• Alto—means middle and refers to clouds that are in the middle layer of our atmosphere.
• Cirrus—means curl in Latin. These clouds are high up and look like wisps of hair. Cirrus are the highest of all clouds and are made up almost entirely of ice crystals.
• Nimbus—comes from the Latin word for rain. Whenever there is precipitation, there are nimbus clouds.

Shadow Leaves, Dusk On The Mississippi, photos © 2007-
2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

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What do you think of when you say the word cloud? Do you see the Universe, fog hanging on the mountains, the sky over the prairie? How many types of clouds can you name. Or maybe cloud to you is not that literal. Is your iced tea cloudy; are there clouds in your coffee? Is there a cloud over your day or your mood? Does your past cloud your vision of the future?

Get out your fast writing pens and write the Topic Cloud at the top of your spiral notebook (or start tapping away on your computer or Smartphone).

You can write a haiku, tanka, or gogyohka practice and post it in the comments.

Or you may be surprised at what you discover when you follow the rules of Writing Practice —- Cloud, 10 minutes, Go!

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Resources:

Cloud Spotting Guide — UK Met Office

Cloud Types for Observers — Reading the Sky — UK Met Office

Cloud Atlas

Common Cloud Names, Shapes, & Altitudes – Georgia Tech

Cotton Cloudiness, Top Of The Cedar Avenue Bridge, photo ©
2008-2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

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I-35 Bridge – 5 Years Later — I Remember

I-35 Bridge Memorial – 36/365, Archive 365, Droid Shots, 35W Bridge Remembrance Garden, Minnesota, July 2012, photo © 2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

I passed by the 35W Bridge Remembrance Garden three times over the last few weeks. Wednesday, August 1st, 2012 marked five years to the day since the I-35 bridge collapsed. The third time I drove by, I was traveling home from the Guthrie with Liz and her mother who was visiting from Wyoming.

Ironically, on August 1st, 2007, Liz’s mother was in the air on her way to Minneapolis when the bridge collapsed. Liz and I were folding laundry and doing last minute preparations for her visit, when we received a phone call from my mother in Pennsylvania asking if we were okay. Confused, we quickly turned on the TV to see that one of the busiest bridges in the Twin Cities had fallen into the Mississippi and was a twisted mass of concrete and steel.

Thirteen people died that day; 145 were injured. They had been going about their lives in what was until that moment, an ordinary day; it could have been any one of us. The Memorial to the victims and survivors of the 35W bridge collapse sits on the west bank of the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis, next to Gold Medal Park. There was a dedication and opening ceremony for the 35W Memorial, August 1st, 2011. It is a quiet place where water falls over a granite wall inscribed with the names of the 145 survivors, and the words:

Our lives are not only defined by what happens, but by how we act in the face of it, not only by what life brings us, but by what we bring to life. Selfless actions and compassion create enduring community out of tragic events.

Last week, I listened to survivor Lindsay Walz tell her story from the perspective and wisdom of the passing of time (you can read her story at this link). On August 1st, she painted details on the back brace she wore for injuries sustained when the bridge collapsed. In addition to a broken back, she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. She states that everyone’s recovery is as unique as their experience on the bridge that day. Some people are still dealing with ongoing crippling pain and can’t work. They can’t do things they used to take for granted. The survivors stay connected through a Facebook page; they are still there for each other.

The night I passed by Bohemian Flats, under the new I-35 bridge, and around the bend to the Memorial, I saw 13 steel girders lit in neon blue, one for each person who lost their lives. I felt compelled to slow down from all the busyness of summer, and remember their names. (To learn more about their lives, there are biographies at the links.)

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	Sherry Engebretsen Sherry Engebretsen knew how to take care of details, especially when it came to her daughters.
	Artemio Trinidad-Mena Originally from Mexico, Artemio lived in Minnesota for about 10 years, and worked at New York Plaza Produce in south Minneapolis for almost a year.
	Julia Blackhawk Julia Blackhawk had recently taken a new Indian name. The 32-year-old from Savage was given the name Thunder Woman during a pow-wow at Easter. Her uncle, John Blackhawk, is a Winnebago Tribal Council member. He says Julia was a kind person who always showed respect for her elders. And he says she had one attribute that was very special.
	Patrick Holmes Patrick Holmes, 36, of Mounds View, was found dead at the scene of the bridge collapse that same night. He was on his way home from work. His wife, Jennifer, heard the news a little after midnight.
	Peter Hausmann Peter Hausmann, 47, was a computer security specialist worked at Assurity River Group in St. Paul. The company’s president says Hausmann was a quiet leader and a man of faith.
Paul Eickstadt Paul Eickstadt drove a delivery truck for Sara Lee Bakery for 14 years. He was just beginning his shift, on his way to Iowa, when the 35W bridge collapsed. Eickstadt, 51, lived in Mounds View. He is survived by a brother and two sisters.
	Greg Jolstad Greg Jolstad’s friends called him Jolly “because of his name, and because that’s just how he was.” Bill Stahlke remembers ice fishing almost daily, as teenagers, with Jolstad and Jim Hallin on Knife Lake, near the Jolstad family farm. The three haven’t missed a winter on the lake in the nearly 30 years since they graduated together from Mora High School.
	Scott Sathers On Aug. 1, Scott Sathers left his job in downtown Minneapolis at Capella University, where he worked as an enrollment director, approximately 40 minutes later than usual. Sathers called his wife Betsy at 5:50 p.m. from Washington Ave. and 35W, where he was about to get on 35W to go north to his home in Blaine.
	Christina Sacorafas Christina Sacorafas was running late, and called her friend and fellow dance instructor, Rena Tsengas, to say she would be late. But Sacorafas never made it the Minneapolis church where students in her Greek folk dancing group were waiting for her to begin class.
	Sadiya and Hanah Sahal For Ahmed Iidle, the I-35W bridge collapse has brought a double loss. His daughter Sadiya Sahal, 23, and her 2-year-old daughter Hanah were headed to a relative’s house when the bridge crumbled beneath them.
	Vera Peck and Richard Chit Vera Peck and her 20-year-old son Richard Chit were traveling in the same car when the bridge collapsed.

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Related to posts: 40 Days, 8 Flags, and 1 Mennonite Choir, Memorial — Day & Night, Bridge To Nowhere — The Great Connector,  Fear Of Bridges, Thornton Wilder & Bridges, Minneapolis At Night, The Name Game (What’s In A Name?)

Resources: Hundreds turn out to dedication of 35W Bridge Memorial, New 35W bridge memorial honors those who died — and the community that disaster brought together, Remembering the Dead, Bridge survivor on 5th anniversary: ‘The day I got to live’

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, August 5th, 2012

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Miners Mural – Ely, Minnesota — 22/365

Miners Mural – Ely, Minnesota – 22/365, Archive 365, Droid Shots, Ely, Minnesota, July 2011, photo © 2011-2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

When I passed this mural yesterday on the corner of Sheridan Street and Central Avenue, I was reminded that I had a photograph in my archives from the trip North last year. The art catches my eye every year when I visit Ely, Minnesota for an annual trip to the North American Bear Center. Ely was a thriving mining town 50 to 100 years ago, with rumbling steam locomotives that pulled train loads of iron ore over to Lake Superior to be shipped out of the Midwest. The town of Ely was named after Samuel B. Ely, a miner from Michigan who never actually visited there.

Most of the mines have closed now. On the north side of town, the bones of Pioneer Mine stand tall over the abandoned quarry where tons of iron ore were extracted by a thriving community of miners; it is now a large body of water called Miners Lake. The mural is one of many around Ely that honor its mining past. It was painted by artist Bill Defenbaugh, part of the Ely Greenstone Public Art Project.

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ARCHIVE 365 is a photo collaboration between skywire7 and QuoinMonkey featuring images from our archives. We will alternate posting once a day in our Flickr sets from July 1st 2012 through June 30th 2013. You can view our photographs at skywire7 Archive 365 set on Flickr and QuoinMonkey Archive 365 set on Flickr.

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, July 24th, 2012. Related to posts: MN Black Bear Den Cam: Will Lily Have Cubs? and Jewel Under The Bear Moon

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Honey Bear – 18/365

Honey Bear – 18/365, Archive 365, BlackBerry Shots, North American Bear Center, Ely, Minnesota, August 2010, photo © 2010-2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

It’s almost time for the annual trip to Ely. We’ll be visiting the North American Bear Center and gathering with friends we have met from across the country, and the world. The goal is outreach and education about black bears. Honey is one of my favorites at the NABC. If you’re driving down Sheridan Street, you might see us waving at the webcam.

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ARCHIVE 365 is a photo collaboration between skywire7 and QuoinMonkey featuring images from our archives. We will alternate posting once a day in our Flickr sets from July 1st 2012 through June 30th 2013. You can view our photographs at skywire7 Archive 365 set on Flickr and QuoinMonkey Archive 365 set on Flickr.

-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, July 18, 2012. Related to posts: MN Black Bear Den Cam: Will Lily Have Cubs? and Jewel Under The Bear Moon

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